@marillo Globe-News: News: New Mexico schools shut down to run off mice 8/29/98

Posted: Saturday, August 29, 1998

Web posted Saturday, August 29, 1998 6:43 a.m. CT

New Mexico schools shut down to run off mice

The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - When mice invade the schools, the kids get a day off. At DataCom, employees were sent home because of mouse droppings.

Classes were canceled Friday at two schools in Cochiti and Santo Domingo pueblos north of Albuquerque while exterminators tried to purge rodents that had invaded the buildings.

"So far they all appear to be field mice and not deer mice, but there were so many of them," said Bernalillo Public Schools Superintendent Gary Dwyer.

Deer mice are among rodents that can carry often-deadly hantavirus.

Classes were dismissed early Thursday and canceled altogether Friday.

The schools are scheduled for a thorough cleaning over the weekend after the exterminators finish.

"You don't see the mice so much as you see feces - in the drawers, teachers' coffee cups," Dwyer said. "It just got very bad today (Thursday)."

Grass on lands surrounding the schools has grown tremendously with recent heavy rains, allowing for a bumper crop of mice.

The mice probably were drawn inside the school buildings once classes started and workers inside were preparing lunches.

Cochiti has about 200 students and Santo Domingo has 600. Both schools are combined elementary and middle schools.

"It's kind of a disruption," Dwyer said. "But in the interest of safety we need to do it."

At DataCom in Albuquerque's North Valley, boxes containing documents - and mouse droppings - were discovered, and employees were instructed Thursday to stay home.

DataCom is a federal contractor, hired to organize Indian trust accounts from around the country. The boxes with the mouse droppings came in from out of state, according to television stations KOAT and KOB.

Some slight contamination was found, according to KOB, while KOAT said employees were scared after the company advised them to wear masks and rubber gloves at work.

DataCom was closed late Friday, and company officials couldn't be reached for immediate comment.

But property manager Rick Davis told KOB that a neighboring real estate company was also a focus of concern because the two companies share an air conditioning system. Davis said the air conditioner was shut down as temperatures in Albuquerque rose to near 90 on Friday.

The U.S. Interior Department will send an environmental engineer to test DataCom for hantavirus Tuesday, KOB said.